IGDA Finland Hub coordinators meet in Joensuu Illusion

workshop

By tradition, IGDA Finland Hubs gather once a year to plan out the next season in Joensuu's Illusion game industry event. The usual challenges the IGDA Finland volunteers thrive to utilize is the continuing rise of the industry and the individuals with it.

Staying true to IGDA Finland's mission to promote and develop the recognition of the game developer community, volunteers around Finland do their best to make it happen. There are now over 40 IGDA Finland gatherings yearly in the whole country.

coordinators

IGDA Finland hub coordinators are a big bunch already. With 8 hubs volunteering around Finland, the reach is very good. We're looking forward to the next season and the exciting events it will entail!

IGDA Finland Summer Party with Supercell

Greetings, developers! Finnish weather has been more about cold rain than hot beaches this year – lucky us for being gamers, knowing what to do when venturing into the outside world is not an option.

As hinted earlier when we announced the fall season gathering dates, we have a special surprise today: IGDA Finland has teamed up with Supercell to bring you THE summer party of the year! We all know it: winter is coming. You wouldn’t want to face it unprepared, so join us as we enjoy the last stretch of summer and make some more warm memories to get us through the long and cold darkness ahead of us. See you in August!

IGDA Finland Summer Party with Supercell
Time: 18.08.2015 at 19:00
Place: Maxine, Urho Kekkosen katu 1 A, 6th floor, 00100 Helsinki

Please note that you need to be at least 18 years old to attend.

Fall season 2015 gathering dates

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far, whether you are spending it here in Finland or traveling around the world. If you haven't lost track of your calendars yet I have some dates for you to mark down: the gatherings for fall season 2015.

• September 1st
• October 6th
• November 10th
• December 8th

We also have a special event coming up next month, on August 18th, so stay tuned! Event details are to be announced later.

The list of gathering dates are also available on the gathering info page.

Housemarque 20th Anniversary Celebration

Even though the IGDA season is over, the game industry keeps on partying. Last Wednesday Housemarque celebrated its 20th anniversary, where more than 400 game developers and their friends gathered to congratulate one of the oldest game companies in Finland!

Housemarque prepared surprises for their guests: Consoles and PCs with studio's games were available for all guests, the various dishes offered were named after studio’s games. The CEO, Ilari Kuittinen welcomed everyone to the anniversary and started a party by showing recap videos of Housemarque games and company history (including the very special, previously unseen ones!). Finnish attendees were excited about the epic appearance of Apulanta (a Finnish rock band which was popular some years ago, as my Finnish friends told me). Marioke was the last surprise Housemarque prepared for the guests: Karaoke as usual, except that all the lyrics had been changed to game-related texts, for example "You are simply Tempest" or "Monkey Target".

If you didn’t get a chance to visit the celebration, you can check out photos and videos in various social media with the hashtag #hmq20. Also, here is a link to Facebook albums from the event: https://www.facebook.com/Housemarque/photos

Thanks Housemarque for a great evening!

Photos by Sami Välikangas.

IGDA Nordic UA Forum & June Gathering with TUNE

Before we would send everyone on their merry way to the summer break, it was time for the last IGDA Gathering of the spring season. This time we had an extra special treat for our guests in the form of The Nordic UA Forum sponsored by the mobile marketer extraordinaire, TUNE. With in depth presentations, panels and Q&A's about mobile user acquisition, The Nordic UA Forum has been touring all around the key Nordic capitals. It was not a surprise that the Forum was fully booked!

The presentations from Eric Seufert (Rovio) and Juha Matikainen (Seriously Entertainment) paved the way for the starstudded panel with Teemu Huuhtanen (NextGames), Olli Laesvirta (Boomlagoon) and Mika Kuusisto (Unity). Thank you again to all of the speakers, the wonderful host of the forum, Ilja Goossens (TUNE) and of course our sponsor TUNE for an insightful evening.

Guests from the forum did not have to leave empty handed since they got decked out for the summer with some cool new sunglasses and bluetooth speakers for the perfect picnic.

Now that the fun part was over it was time to have even more fun at the official IGDA June Gathering! The crowd was buzzing with interesting conversations about the previous presentations. "It was nice to hear from other companies how they have tackled the issue of user acquisition in the mobile market. It gave a new perspective on the whole topic", said one guest.

The night was drawing to a close but everyone still had some time to say their goodbyes to friends and colleagues before the summer break. Do not fret, because IGDA Finland will be back in September! Thank you to all of our guests and sponsors, it has been a busy spring and we will see you again in a few months!